No Indian in Alastair Cook’s all-time XI

By Shalini Singh

Image Credit @Getty Images

Alastair Cook’s playing XI

Former England skipper Alastair Cook has revealed his pick of all-time XI where he has left out Indian players from the team.

Cook said that he has picked the players who have played either with or against him. His mentor and England batting legend Graham Gooch in an exception in his playing XI. He has included some of the legends of the game but it doesn’t include any Indian player.

Cook also excluded his former teammate Kevin Pieterson from his team. Revealing his playing XI, Cook said, “Goochy is going to be my captain and my opening batsman. He can open the batting along with Mathew Hayden. Goochy is an Essex legend, England legend and Hayden has also been a great player so both of them can shine with the bat.”

He chose Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis and Kumar Sangakkara as his middle-order batsman by adding that they could decide their batting position according to their wish.

He also said that either of Sangakkara and de Villiers can don the wicket keepers gloves.

“I would a lot of money to watch these middle order batsmen bat,” he said.

He also included Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and James Anderson in his all-time playing XI.

Alastair Cook has recently hung his boots from all forms of international cricket and the fifth Test match against India will be Cook’s last Test match. He will play 116th Test match of his career and he is England’s all-time highest scorer with 12,554 runs behind Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Rahul Dravid and Kumar Sangakkara.

England will be taking on India for the fifth Test on September 07, 2018 at Oval, London.

England have also announced the squad for the fifth Test against India where they have also included Chris Woakes and Ollie Pope in the squad.